As excited as some of us still are about Google Wave (hell, two of us wrote a book), Wave's biggest problem remains: "What would I use it for?" With the app's new wave templates, Google wants to guide you toward answers.

Now when you visit Wave, the New Wave panel (and the new wave button) offer options for starting waves using templates for common use cases. Gina and I highlighted some of our favorite, creative Wave use cases over at The Complete Guide to Google Wave, but the new templates offer a really helpful jumping off point for collaborating in Wave for common uses, like discussions, task tracking, meeting notes, document creation, and brainstorming. You can still stick with the default blank wave, but it seems like a step in the right direction to help new users get familiar with the tool.